Friday, March 24, 2006

F'ing Ching -- The USA-Germany Game

The game was fun. The stadium was amazing -- we were about 30 rows from the top & had great seats. This is because the Germans go for extremely steep inclines in their stadia -- almost enough to trigger my vertigo (donde esta?). Instead we got a great view of a major ass-whooping in the second half.

The great part of the first half was how quiet the crowd was. They were clearly worried that somehow they would manage to choke against an American B team (plus D team regular Brian F'ing Ching). Anytime the US would get possession, they had the same look Dick Cheney has during Bush speeches -- "Please God, don't let him screw up". Had the US scored, there might have been a riot or a mass suicide -- it wasn't clear which.

God only knows what Taylor Twellman does in National Team training camps. I assume he either smokes or deals crack. How else do you explain how he's on the bench after torching the opposition in January & February? And to have Ching start in your place is not a good sign for your World Cup hopes. Unfortunately, this meant we were playing 9 on 11 in the first half on offense. The typical possession went: Convey outlet pass to Johnson, sweet flick on to Ching, who quickly loses the ball. Sometimes we varied this by having Ching not get off a shot. Other times he wouldn't make a run and a perfect pass would roll out of bounds while he watched from the least dangerous spot he could find. Instead of scoring at least one while controlling the majority of the half, we were stuck with 0-0.

Arena no doubt told the team he wanted an early goal in the 2nd half; he just forgot to specify which team. So anxious was the defense to please The Bruce, we were still in line for beer and sausage when the goal happened.

I've permanently blocked the six minutes of death from my memory. It was a comedy of errors, with Berhalter & Conrad starring as idiots, while Gibbs had a supporting role. I'll just say that if Arena had subbed in Agoos for any of the three, I wouldn't have argued.

On the bright side, the score meant my friends pushed for an early exit to make the better train, meaning i got home at 1130 instead of 1. No word yet from US Soccer on my request for a partial refund since the defense didn't play in the 2nd half.

No comments: